As you see, this porcelain bowl is not in pristine condition. An old glued repair has given up and two lumps fell off. The bowl was made in Lowestoft, probably in the 1770s, so rather than throw it away I decided a crude epoxy job would do.
First stick the two escaped bits together.
Then stick them into the bowl like so.
When the glue has dried the bowl goes onto a shelf.
Why bother though? With that amount of damage, even a 250 year old porcelain bowl is worth very little. Because of its condition I only paid a couple of quid for it about twenty years ago.
A professional restorer would have stuck it back together in such a way that only a very close inspection would reveal the damage, but the cost wouldn't be worthwhile. As far as collectors are concerned it is still a badly damaged and not particularly rare bowl.
Yet I could never have thrown it away. It's nothing to do with the value because it has none to speak of, but the age of the thing seems to give it some kind of cachet. The cachet won't last though. One day a descendant is bound to wonder what on earth it is and throw it out.
7 comments:
"One day a descendant is bound to wonder what on earth it is and throw it out."
Start a rumour now about the terrible fate that befell the first guy that broke it.
Very wise and it sits on a nice bracket. Ca n'est pas un bol.
But it looks very nice where it is.
So why worry?
We have a porcelain figure " Hebe and the Vulture" which my great aunts ( who were Victorian ladies) used to treasure. In fact, it is a reproduction of little value but we keep it just the same for the associated memories.
We have a 1950's clock that I was about to throw away when I decided to have a look on the net to see if it was worth selling. I got a shock to see that it had some real value because of make and design. Not a great deal, but worth keeping.
Sam - I'll call it the Haunted Bowl of Eternal Doom... or maybe something a little less dramatic.
Roger - the bracket is one of a pair. I'm not sure what they are, maybe somebody was imitating medieval stone heads often seen on churches.
Edward - I've never heard of "Hebe and the Vulture". My parents used to treasure a Victorian teapot of no value but as with your figure it brings back memories.
Demetrius - I like old clocks but having them fixed when they go wrong can be expensive.
Our place is full of what is objectively rubbish but with sentimental value.
Our son has just taken into care the pair of bent cheap copper candlesticks that were used by my mother's family during wartime power cuts and subsequently rescued (bent) from the rubble when their house was destroyed, so hopefully the trend to keep stuff is inherited.
Woodsy - copper candlesticks can be worth keeping if they have been planished or have a prestigious maker's mark. We have a number of inherited odds and ends, but much of it had to go because it would only have ended up in the attic.
Post a Comment